It wasn’t but a few nights ago, that while my Wife and I were relaxing in the evening, we heard a single loud pop. Immediately we started investigating, checking our home and peering out into the street for any activity. Everything was quiet, nobody stirred from their homes, and there wasn’t any evidence of anything out of the ordinary. so we moved past it, doing our best to put it out of our minds.
Today an elderly neighbor stopped me as I was heading inside.
She told me that my next door neighbor killed himself.
It’s tragic, he was a good guy and I enjoyed talking to him in those transient moments when neighbors cross paths.
At first, I had forgotten about the noise from a couple of nights ago, but now I can’t stop thinking about it. I know it’s not rational, but It makes me feel regret, because I wish I had done something. I heard it and I could have checked in, I could have called 911, and I didn’t.
As much as I’d like to talk to my wife I think she would feel guilty if she knew we may have heard it that night.
In the end it’s not about me, and I’m sure that I’ll be able to move on eventually.
Sometimes I think about who might miss me when I’m gone, and the list I come up with is typically somewhat short. Your family, your friends, your coworkers. I realize now that it’s also the neighbors you had a conversation with once a week. That you were willing to share parts of your life with even if it were only for a few minutes on a Saturday afternoon.
To my neighbor,
I’m glad I got to know you even just a little bit. There was joy in the small pieces of your life you shared with me. I’m grateful to have known you.
I’ll miss you, man. Rest in Peace.
Comments
Here’s the thing man it’s not like you could have done anything it’s not like you were gonna go to his house ask him what happened right? Yes you could’ve investigated but honestly who would investigate a loud pop sound for all we know it could’ve been a balloon popping or something else right?
I’m sorry this happened. I’m sorry you guys heard it. Mental illness is like other illnesses, it can kill a person. Don’t feel guilty. You couldn’t have known or changed anything. We never really know other people, not really. Like you said, we can just be kind in passing. I wish you comfort
I had the same thing happen in an apartment complex many years ago. A week later we complained to the maintenance guy about a foul smell. It was in Florida in one of those open air walkway type of apartments, so it wasn’t enclosed but you could smell it when we were on our lanai.
I never knew the woman, but felt terrible when I found out what happened.
Not tragic like this but I had the same thing happen with hearing a gunshot one evening, it wasn’t until a few months later when I was sitting on the other couch I never sit on that I realized there was a bullet in my wall just under the top tier of our cat tower, my window was open so it passed right through the screen and blinds so no broken window or anything to alert me it actually came into my home.
A few years ago I was in beauty school and long story short a man came to the school in an attempt to murder his wife and ended up killing himself in front of the school. That was the first GSW I had seen in person and trust me you and your wife should be thankful you didn’t go into his house or try to investigate further because y’all would have received life long trauma from that situation. Very rarely do self inflicted GSW survive that, so realistically yeah you could have called 911, but that most likely wouldn’t have saved his life. All in all there was nothing you could have done differently that would have changed the outcome.
I appreciate your sensitive, thoughtful, poetic soul. We are rarely aware of another person’s suffering.
You never know what kind of battle is raging inside someone’s head. My wish is that most can get some help to fight the demons inside pushing for death, but if they lose that battle, I hope they have found the peace they were craving and couldn’t seem to find in life. I’m sorry for your loss and that you have to go through this.
I know exactly how you feel, our neighbor, in his early 30s, killed himself shortly after Christmas, or possibly late on Christmas day. No one knows for sure, because he wasn’t found until Jan 31st. Part of me still wonders if we or some of his other neighbors should have said something to someone close to him.
In our defense, he did have an addiction problem and disappearing for long periods of time while he was in rehab wasn’t unusual for him. His last stint in rehab was back during the summer. I actually talked to his dad while he was in rehab, and he was thrilled about how much better he was doing back then. So when he quit going out several times a day to get takeout right after Christmas, and his parents had visited him with gifts earlier Christmas day, I figured they found him relapsed and checked him back into rehab.
I’m still in shock that he laid there for over a month before they found him. He was a nice guy.
I had a neighbor who did it during July 4th fireworks so no one would think anything of another pop. He explained his reasoning in a letter.